Threaded Order Chronological Order
| re: Seeing Report that Christopher Plummer has died | |
| Posted by: dbdbdb 12:52 pm EST 02/06/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Seeing Report that Christopher Plummer has died - WaymanWong 12:27 am EST 02/06/21 | |
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| The 1993 Cyrano was a loud, stentorian pop opera of no particular interest. The creative team was Dutch and the English lyrics, by Sheldon Harnick, had some unfortunate aspects. One favorite, sung by the good sisters at the convent to which Roxanne retires, was, "Cyrano is lots of fun/Lots of fun for every nun." The 2019 Cyrano was a depressing exercise that stripped the material of its melodrama and romance. Peter Dinklage played it without an enlarged nose; also cut was the speech in which Cyrano comes up with dozens of witty synonyms for that particular organ. At first, I thought the show might make something of the actor's dwarfism, but it didn't. In truth, Dinklage is a pretty good-looking guy and it was hard to see why he couldn't make a play for Roxanne. Her character was reduced to nothing as well, thanks to the loss of scenes like the one in which Roxanne and Ragueneau the baker storm the battlefield bearing provisions for Cyrano, Christian, and their fellow soldiers. The score is best described as morose. It was Ken Mandelbaum who made the very good point that the text of Cyrano is so lush and grand that adding music to it constitutes an unnecessary gilding of the lily. |
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| Harnick's credit on CYRANO was for "additional lyrics." | |
| Last Edit: Seth Christenfeld 11:55 am EST 02/08/21 | |
| Posted by: Seth Christenfeld (tabula-rasa@verizon.net) 11:54 am EST 02/08/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Seeing Report that Christopher Plummer has died - dbdbdb 12:52 pm EST 02/06/21 | |
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| The bulk of the English translation was by Peter Reeves, a minor British actor-turned-writer whose other major credit is having written "Engine of Love" with ALW--the song that ended up growing into Starlight Express. Seth, who remembers this garbage but can't remember a word of high school French |
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